“CAUGHT! In the Act. The Spider’s Release” on Friday, April 8. 2011 at 7PM

Tying in with Icosahedron Gallery's Surrealist exhibition, "A Foot in the Grave II", “CAUGHT! In the Act” explores the psyche of the animal mind through textiles, gestural movement, and the cross-breeding of the innate characteristics of a spider with humanistic qualities. This surrealist performance piece transforms Icosahedron's Main Gallery located in the heart of West Chelsea’s Art District into a spiderweb where viewers are literally caught in the act.

Each month, Hybrid.[Theatre].Ensemble has been producing provocative performance pieces that question how live art, a live performance, can draw onlookers into a world of unconventional art, a world where viewers are forced to interact with living and breathing art pieces. At the foundation of past and current performances, lies the relationship between voyeurs and voyees which is cyclically reversed. “We created these monthly performance pieces in a setting where art is not interactive, where art does not literally look at you while you look at it [the art]. All of our pieces have been experiments that probe the question of when the voyeur becomes the one who is actually being watched. ‘CAUGHT! In the Act’ is a prime example of the role reversal at hand through its literal yet, surrealist qualities.” says Founding Artistic Director, Philip Sy Zisman.

This visually stunning piece transforms one of Icosahedron Gallery’s five showrooms into the lair of a spider from top to bottom with yards of beautifully draped fabric extended from the ceiling and a full spider web at the base of the space. Centered in the midst of this web lies performer, Elina Zavala, whose beautifully stylized physicality leaves viewers in awe of the seductive dance she creates luring onlookers (or rather her “flies”) deep into the abyss of her carefully spun web.

“CAUGHT! In the Act. The Spider’s Release” will leave viewers, if that’s even what they can be called through a piece such as this, to question their own roles in the midst of the art world. Hybrid.[Theatre].Ensemble has truly outdone themselves this month at Icosahedron Gallery which may give that “friendly neighborhood” superhero some competition (minus the countless injuries, of course).